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Background The widespread adoption of electronic health records provides new opportunities to better predict which patients are likely to suffer a stroke. Using electronic health records, we assessed the correlation of different laboratory tests to future occurrences of a stroke. Methods We examined the electronic health records of 2.4 million people over a two year time span. These records contained 26,964 diagnoses of stroke. Using Cox regression analysis, we measured whether any one of 1796 different laboratory tests were effectively correlated with a future diagnosis of stroke. Results We identified 38 different laboratory tests that had significant short-term (two year) prognostic value for a future diagnosis of stroke. For each of the 38 laboratory tests we also compiled the Kaplan-Meier survival curve, and relative risk ratio that the test confers. Conclusion Several dozen laboratory tests are effective short-term correlates of stroke. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12883-016-0619-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

More breast cancers are diagnosed in the left breast than the right. The ratio (l/r) is called the laterality ratio. We analyzed 1.2 million cases of breast cancer diagnosed in the US between 1973 and 2010 and recorded by the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program. We found that the laterality ratio depends upon the country of birth, but not race of the patient. We identified five countries of birth that had p-values larger than 0.995, while we expected to see less than 1. Those born in Japan (l/r = 1.14, p = 0.997), the Ryukyu Islands (l/r = 2.6, p = 0.998), Laos (l/r = 1.62, p = 0.9999) and Algeria (l/r = 2.1 p = 0.9959) had significantly larger laterality ratios compared to the overall SEER population (l/r = 1.04). Those born in Poland (l/r = 0.92, p = 0.997) had a laterality ratio significantly less than expected. We compared the laterality ratio calculated for tumors occurring in each quadrant of the breast for two immigrant populations: those born in Japan and those born in Poland. We found the only significant difference was in the laterality ratio of the upper outer quadrant. Thus, the birthplace effect appears to only occur in the upper outer quadrant of the breast. Finally, we found a small, but statistically significant, increase in the breast cancer laterality ratio with age, and decrease with birth year and year of diagnosis. © 2014 Sughrue, Brody.

Mycobacteriophages are viruses that infect mycobacterial hosts such as Mycobacterium smegmatis and Mycobacterium tuberculosis. All mycobacteriophages characterized to date are dsDNA tailed phages, and have either siphoviral or myoviral morphotypes. However, their genetic diversity is considerable, and although sixty-two genomes have been sequenced and comparatively analyzed, these likely represent only a small portion of the diversity of the mycobacteriophage population at large. Here we report the isolation, sequencing and comparative genomic analysis of 18 new mycobacteriophages isolated from geographically distinct locations within the United States. Although no clear correlation between location and genome type can be discerned, these genomes expand our knowledge of mycobacteriophage diversity and enhance our understanding of the roles of mobile elements in viral evolution. Expansion of the number of mycobacteriophages grouped within Cluster A provides insights into the basis of immune specificity in these temperate phages, and we also describe a novel example of apparent immunity theft. The isolation and genomic analysis of bacteriophages by freshman college students provides an example of an authentic research experience for novice scientists.